Welcome to Glenn's Blog!

Here I will periodically post random thoughts and stories about what's going on in my life and the world around me. As if anyone cared. But seriously, you've found your way here, so hopefully you will enjoy at least some of what I have to say, even if you aren't entirely interested in it. At the least, it should be a good way to waste time.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Thank God That's Over

Well, the Festival of New American Music is now officially over, at least it was as of Sunday. And after a restful yet productive furlough day, I'm back at work catching up on the things that had been put on the back burner the last couple of weeks. I must say, FeNAM in itself wasn't that bad this year for me; everything went smoothly, or seemed to at least, and I only ended up doing 22.5 overtime hours.

The last two weeks were compounded though by Meet Me In St. Louis, my first venture at RSP as Musical Director. Really, my first venture anywhere as musical director. Why anyone would think to put me in that role with no experience is beyond me, but it actually has worked out pretty well. And I've certainly learned a lot. And, it's been fun, which is really the ultimate goal of anything.

Of course, doing a tech week while at the same time trying to get ready to open our busiest festival at Sac State is really not recommended. That was a tough week!

Things were compounded further by my learning on Saturday morning that one of my old friends - my closest friend during my undergrad days at Sac State - passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. This certainly made it very hard to focus at Saturday's and Sunday's musical shows.

But I'm not going to go into that here...yet.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloween 2009

Well, Halloween has passed and November has begun, and we've been given an extra hour due to Daylight Savings time as well. What nice timing, for people to get extra sleep following Halloween night. It seems that in recent years I really haven't done much of anything for Halloween. I've always been too busy doing this or that, or just otherwise have not found time to get into the spirit. I certainly did not do any decorating or dressing up.

This year was not much of an exception, but at least I got out a little bit. The afternoon began with a four hour rehearsal of Meet Me In St. Louis. This is my first time conducting a show, which is at once both exciting and daunting. I've been trying to put a lot of time into score study and listening to the CD and even watching the MGM movie twice, so I could get up to speed. It's been going okay - at least I think I'm getting better and certainly learning a lot really fast.

Anyway, after rehearsal we ordered pizza from Papa Johns and went home for a few hours to see if any trick-or-treaters would come by, and to watch some Halloween-esque movie. It was my intention to watch Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein", but as it turns out, I don't seem to have a copy at home. So we watched recorded episodes of Law and Order and CSI. It kind of fits.

No trick-or-treaters came by. Just like last year.

Then we went to go see the 9:00pm showing of Batboy at Sac State. I was fortunate enough to come across some 2-for-1 ticket coupons last week, so it was a rather cheap date. The show was pretty solid overall, certainly entertaining and humorous anyway. And lots of people there were dressed in costume. So, it was kind of like being at a Halloween party.

Okay, not really. But hey, it was a fun holiday after all.